China pollutes? It's a tired excuse, like 'the dog ate my homework.'

Notes: This November 2014 press release was a response to U.S. and China reaching an agreement just one day before to cut carbon emissions. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that agreement between the world’s largest carbon polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions responsible for much of global warming.

Obama pledged that the U.S, as the New York Times reported, “would emit 26% to 28% less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. That is double the pace of reduction it targeted for the period from 2005 to 2020.”

For its part, China agreed it would cap and start to reduce emissions no later than 2030. Critics, such as U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, complained, “The U.S. will be required to more steeply reduce our carbon emissions while China won’t have to reduce anything.”

However, China did progress to reduce its emissions since that announcement.

BloombergBusiness recently reported that in 2015, ‘'China remained the biggest market for renewables, increasing investment 17% to $110.5 billion, almost double the $56 billion invested in the U.S.'

A few days later, ClimateCentral.org noted China’s coal use declined 2% as electricity demand fell flat in 2015. Even more, the analysis now projects, “China’s total emissions are on track to peak potentially a decade earlier than their official target of no later than 2030.”

Thus, we can now retire the excuse: ‘U.S. should not act on climate change because China pollutes.’

Instead, this Citizens' Climate Lobby press release thinks Congress must now pass a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend to reduce the threat of climate change.

Listing Details

Bite

‘When people have talked of climate solutions, critics argued America can’t cut emissions as long as China pollutes. We can now retire that lame excuse to the same list that includes “the dog ate my homework.”’ – Steve Valk, Communications Director for Citizens’ Climate Lobby.